In its bid to wriggle out of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) corridor rigmarole, the Transport Department has sent a note to lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung for the final decision over the project that has received flak from all the quarters, including BJP and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
A brainchild of former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, the controversial BRT project was put on life support after the Finance Department did not allocate funds for the three successive years — 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2014-15. Now the Transport Department wants l-G to take the final call on this project. It is also notable that during the annual Budget for the year 2011-2012, the Government had allocated Rs 450 crore for the construction of 14 new integrated BRT corridors in the Capital.
Top sources told The Pioneer that the department has moved a proposal to take final decision over the BRT project. “The study reports of 14 BRT corridors across the city have been completed. The previous Congress Government had ordered the study of 14 BRT corridors for future. The final decision over the project will be taken by the l-G,” sources said.
An official of the Transport Department said that there was no need to move such proposal at this stage as there is no elected Government in the Capital. “It should be understood that all political parties, including BJP and AAP, have been opposed the project while the Congress has weaken after the assembly polls in December last year. The project should be continued to be in the cold storage,” official said.
The former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who had been strongly defending the project despite widespread opposition to it, candidly admitted that her Government could not make the corridor successful because of which plans for 14 other similar projects had been shelved.
BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has already accused the UPA Government of “stealing from him and giving to Delhi”. He has stated: “They (Centre) were worried that Modi will take credit for it and, therefore, gave it to Sheila Dikshit to copy it before us. But today while our BRT is a huge success, in Delhi it has turned out to be a failure.” The BJP had been demanding scrapping of the BRT corridor, promising that it would dismantle it if voted to power. Opposing the BRT corridor, the AAP had stated that it plans to take the project back to the drawing board and study it all over again before taking a decision on scrapping or improving it. In the first BRT project, buses plying on the corridor have doors in the left side which has created problems for commuters using the stretch. The first BRT project between Ambedkar Nagar and Delhi Gate was started without Detailed Project Report (DPR) has created a poor first impression. Inadequate planning and haste in rolling out the project have all been criticised. Parliamentary Committee on Road Transport suggested to the Sheila Dikshit Government to scrap the pilot project.
The CAG in its report blamed faulty execution and poor selection of the stretch for the mess on the pilot project. Even, the Geneva-based International Road Federation (IRF) had expressed concern at the safety and feasibility of this corridor and called for its immediate stalling. The High Capacity Bus System (HCBS) project in Delhi is the first project in the world which has been started without a DPR.